Assembly guide

“Guide” in the toolbar opens the interactive assembly guide for the current project. Carcassist generates it from the configuration: a sequence of steps that can actually be built, with the piece in 3D as it must look after each step.

The view

• Left the steps, grouped by module (plinth, each carcass, drawer boxes, worktop). Done steps fade; a click jumps to a step.
• Centre the piece in 3D: everything built so far and, in orange, this step's parts. Back/Next sit on top of the 3D view and stay put while you page.
• Right what to do: description, the parts with their position numbers (the same numbers as the DXF bundle and the part drawings), the hardware with counts (dowels, PV connectors, Dominos, screws, shelf pins, hinges, runners) and the tools.
• The arrow keys page too; Esc closes. The step you are on is kept in the browser.

Who drills what?

At the top you choose, for four kinds of machining, whether the CNC does it or you do it by hand:

Edge bores need a machine with horizontal boring, so by default they are yours.

Preparing the parts

Every module starts with a “Prepare part” step per part – identical parts (say four equal plinth sides) share one step. The 3D view then shows only that part, flat, as a technical drawing in 3D:

• The edges are named (front, back, left, right, top, bottom – as the part sits in the piece).
• Every bore and groove is dimensioned from the nearer edge, as ordinate dimensions: one dimension line per reference edge, each value once.
• Bores in an end edge are dimensioned along that edge and sit centred in the board thickness.

On the right every operation is a card, marked CNC or by hand: what it is and how many, diameter and depth or the groove's width, depth and length, and which face. Below, every bore is its own numbered row with both distances, say “9 mm from bottom · 15.5 mm from back”. Grooves are dimensioned to their flank; a groove at the edge is called a rebate.

• Click a card's title: the whole block lights up orange in 3D, each bore with its row number, and only its dimensions are shown.
• Click a row: only that one bore lights up – dimensioned in all three directions: its two distances from the edges, for a bore into an edge also its position in the thickness (say “9” from the face), and its depth along the bore axis. When the selection is in an edge, the view turns toward that edge.
• Click again to deselect. “Show all dimensions” shows (and hides) every dimension.

Ticking off

Everything you do by hand has a checkbox: one per bore, plus one on the title for the whole block. The 3D view shows the board in its current state: CNC work and ticked items are drilled or cut; what is still open is only a pencil mark on it – a circle with a cross per bore, the two flanks per groove. Above, you see how much is done, and “Clear ticks” starts the board over.

Ticking selects: what you tick becomes the selection (any previous one is dropped), and the view turns and zooms to it – so you see the freshly drilled hole inside the orange ring. Selecting by click zooms too; with nothing selected the view shows the whole board again.

When a step covers several identical parts (say “Plinth side left (4×)”), pick the board 1 … 4 at the top – each has its own ticks. A finished board gets a ✓; when all are finished, so does the step in the list on the left. Ticks are kept in this browser, per project – they are not part of the project file, so they don't travel with an export, a share link or to another device. When a part's machining changes, its ticks start over. Below, the to-scale part drawing can be expanded.

Check what the CNC did; do everything marked by hand before assembling.

Order

The order follows the construction so nothing gets locked in:

1. Plinth: prepare the parts, then put it together – depending on its type:

   • Plinth box: the front flat, the sides and cross members on it, the back rail last (front running through). With the sides running through: front, back rail and cross members onto the left side, then the right side.
   • Laminated ladder: one step per layer. Layer 1 lays the long beams out running through, with the cross pieces between them; every further layer is glued onto the one below and runs across it (even layers across, odd layers lengthwise), with the filler pieces between. The title gives the number of beams and fillers, the text the beam length and the number of joints; each layer's dowels are listed in its step. In 3D the finished layers are shown, the current one in orange. Then fit the levelling feet (inserts from below, turn the feet in, set the gap to the floor) or screw on the castors – the feet only appear in 3D from that step on.
   • Front only: no build step of its own; the front goes onto the system legs at the very end (see 5.).

2. Per carcass: prepare the parts, then bottom to left side, a captured back (while the second side is off), divider / middle shelf, right side, top or rails, a slide-in, rebated or overlay back, shelves.

3. Drawer boxes once the carcass stands (ideally while its glue dries): prepare the parts, side with front and back piece, slide the bottom into its groove (or fit it on), add the second side and clamp it square. Identical boxes are built together.

4. Fit the runners and insert the drawers, then fronts, doors, finally sliding doors.

5. Set up and level the plinth – with shims, castors or the levelling feet, before any load goes on it –, then set the carcasses on it and screw them down (with levelling feet, reset them from above with the key afterwards). With "front only" instead: stand the carcasses on the system legs, level them, clip the front on.

6. The worktop, by type:

   • Solid slab: lay it on, align it to its overhangs (the values are in the text) and screw it from inside through the carcass tops – no glue, so it comes off again.
   • Clamp box: frame and bottom skin built on the bench (shown on their own and zoomed in, each step's parts in orange), then set on the carcasses without the top skin; the rest goes on there:
     1. Dowel and glue the frame – ribs and fixed aprons with their connectors (Duo dowels and glue, say), one clamp per fixed apron across its two ribs so the joints close; not clamped square. Without fixed aprons: set out the ribs, with the rib positions. Without a bottom skin the frame is clamped and checked by its diagonals instead.
     2. Dowel and glue the frame onto the bottom skin – the factory-square board is the reference and lies flat on the floor. Two Ø 8 alignment dowels per rib (10 mm in the skin, 20 mm in the rib edge) hold every rib in place; glue on the edges, set the frame onto the dowels, weight it, let it dry. Then turn it over and screw through the bottom skin into ribs and fixed aprons – 40 mm from each board end, at most the set screw pitch apart. (The other way round works too: frame upside down, board onto the dowels, screw at once.)
     3. Set the box on the carcasses without its top skin, align, shim and screw from above – inside the box, beside the ribs – down through the bottom skin into the carcass tops, four per carcass. The top skin covers them later; to take the box off, remove it first.
     4. Fit the top skin – drilled beforehand (grid holes, plus two holes per piece for dry Ø 8 dowel pins, at most 10 mm deep). Ordered in one piece: drill first, then saw the strip out; in two pieces: clamp halves and strip together and drill them in one go. Transfer the mating holes to the ribs with dowel centres, set the pins in dry and screw only, no glue: countersunk screws, pre-drilled and countersunk, heads about 1 mm deep, on the rib centrelines between the holes, never in the sacrificial strip. On replacement the old skin is the template, the new screws 20–30 mm offset.
     5. Lay in the sacrificial strip, screwed only.
     6. Stop strips and loose aprons (with "alternating fixed / loose" and "loose infill panels").

   The dowel pins are listed in their step but not in the hardware list; nor are the loose aprons' magnets or turn buttons. The hardware list counts the bottom-skin screws into ribs and fixed aprons.

Every connector is listed in exactly the step where its two parts meet; together the steps add up to the hardware list.

Not yet included: a print version, part labels and a second, following window – they come next.